More than a third of some 11,000 eligible voters showed up to vote in Greenfield on June 8. They overwhelmingly vetoed the Greenfield mayor’s and city council’s support of plans by an incinerator corporation to build in Greenfield. The company is Madera Energy Corporation (MEC).

Janet Sinclair was a leader of the campaign against the incinerator. “This is a great victory,” she said.

An MEC spokesman said his company would seek to build an incinerator in Greenfield despite the will of the people.

Motorcycle noise is a problem every summer in the Valley, said Cliff Crowley. He is working to pass laws to limit the noise. He is a member of a national group, Noise Free America www.NoiseFree.org New Hampshire is one of the worst states for motorcycle noise. Keene has more motorcycles per capita than most cities in New Hampshire, according to the group.

On May 7, members of Greenpeace went to Entergy Corporation’s annual shareholder meeting in Jackson, Mississippi. They told company officials to close Entergy's Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor in 2012. Vermont Yankee is in Vernon, Vermont. It's three miles from Massachusetts and a stone's throw from New Hampshire.

Greenpeace spokesman Jarred Cobb told the Valley Post that, “The Vermont state senate voted in February 2010 to close Vermont Yankee in March 2012. The vote was 26-4. Entergy is ignoring the wishes of Vermonters.”

More information is at www.greenpeace.org

On May 1, thousands of people marched to the Vermont statehouse. "If Vermont passes single-payer health care, I will meet with President Obama and say, 'If Vermont can do this, so can the nation,'" U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders told the marchers. In the second photo, a blind man uses a cane while he marches.

Four of the five Democrats who are running for governor, including senate president Peter Shumlin of Putney (a few miles from Brattleboro) were at the march. Vermont votes Democratic more than almost any other state.

Earlier this year, the Vermont senate voted to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in 2012. Yankee is a few miles from Massachusetts and a stone’s throw from New Hampshire.

“When Vermont Yankee closes in 2012, it will not be the end of the story,” said Paul Burns, director of www.vpirg.org “The reactor site will be a nuclear waste dump that will cost more than $1 billion dollars to clean up.”

The subsidiary of Entergy Corporation that owns Vermont Yankee is likely to declare bankruptcy in 2012 and stick Vermont taxpayers with the clean-up costs.

Doris “Granny D” Haddock died on March 9 at her home near Keene. She was 100 years old. In 1999 and 2000, Haddock walked from the Pacific Ocean in California to Washington, DC to call for public financing of elections at the national level. Thousands of people, including several members of Congress and former Texas Secretary of Agriculture Jim Hightower, joined Haddock for the last few miles of her walk to the U.S. capitol building.

Maine and Arizona have public financing of state elections.

A group of Greenfield residents who are fighting a proposed “big box” store which they say would be a Wal-Mart, released the following statement on March 4. Contact information for the residents follows the statement. Valley Post articles about the proposed store are at:

www.valleypost.org/2009/04/22/pro-big-box-greenfield-mayor-voted-out

www.valleypost.org/2008/10/02/big-box-battle

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The Vermont senate voted on February 24 to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in 2012. The vote was 26-4. The reactor is three miles from Massachusetts and a stone's throw from New Hampshire. The New York Times reported that the vote means Vermont Yankee will almost certainly close in 2012. For more information about Vermont Yankee and the grassroots movement that led to the senate vote, please click the "nuclear power" tag, above, then scroll down.

The Vermont senate will vote on February 24 on whether the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant can run after 2012, said Duane Peterson, president of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group www.vpirg.org

Vermont Yankee is three miles from Massachusetts and a stone's throw from New Hampshire.

Live video of the senate debate is available at www.vpirg.org

Live audio is available at www.leg.state.vt.us

About 500 people attended a march and rally to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant February 21 in Brattleboro. Organizers asked people to contact their legislators in advance of a key vote in the Vermont senate on February 24. One anti-nuclear group is seeking donations so it can run a television commercial about the vote. Details are at www.vpirg.org

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This photo shows the February 21 march. Please click on the photo to enlarge it. photo by Eesha Williams